


it's the little things you do together

by cygnes



Series: short fic belatedly posted from tumblr [4]
Category: Baby Driver (2017)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-24
Updated: 2018-08-24
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:42:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22947220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cygnes/pseuds/cygnes
Summary: ...that make perfect relationships.Buddy and Darling, before either of them use those names, meet and discover common interests.
Relationships: Buddy | Jason van Horn/Darling | Monica
Series: short fic belatedly posted from tumblr [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1648723
Comments: 1
Kudos: 7





	it's the little things you do together

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted [here](https://manzanas-amargas.tumblr.com/post/177363180035/wear-a-white-shirt-she-tells-him-and-his#notes) on tumblr.

“Wear a white shirt,” she tells him, and his answer is the same as it always is:

“Anything for you.”

She likes the way it looks on him when she can see the blood. His hands shook the first time he killed someone, back in the late eighties when he was still basically a kid, but he doubts hers did. He wasn’t there to see the first time she killed someone, or at least he doesn’t think so. But maybe she wouldn’t have mentioned it. Maybe her first time was that jumped-up drug runner she beat to death with a shovel near the Hoover Dam. That’d be impressive.

Then again, he’s impressed already.

He was impressed the first time he saw her. She seemed like she had to be a different species. She made him feel like whatever slimy thing first crawled out of the primordial soup onto land, if it had been confronted by one of God’s angels. And that was saying something. After all, he was wearing Armani.

Her hair was swept back and up. Her shirt was high-necked. She wore almost no makeup. This wasn’t one of those flashy places where the staff were made up like fashion models. No: this was a restaurant for people with real money. They hired people who were naturally beautiful and cold as glaciers. He didn’t expect to ever touch her. He didn’t expect to see the skin of her neck or arms – nothing but her beautiful face and hands and a swath of black cloth connecting them. She could be hollow inside. Mechanical. He’d never know. He didn’t care.

(It was possible that he was a little fucked up. It was possible that he’d always been a little fucked up, even back when he was Jason Costello from Staten Island, taking the LIRR out to East Hampton to crash rich kids’ cars for fun. Jason van Horn didn’t need to boost cars. Jason van Horn could crash his own cars for fun. Sometimes he did. And it wasn’t the day job that paid him well enough for that. No, it was Staten Island friends of friends, who knew Jason could move money and keep his fucking mouth shut.)

She slipped him a card that first night. A name and phone number in a sans serif font, embossed, on the front. An address and time on the back. He didn’t know if it was hers. It might have been one of Sofia’s friends, or Alberto’s, who didn’t want to be seen with him in public. He went anyway. What did he care? If he was unlucky, he’d be sailing down the Hudson in pieces by sunrise. If he was lucky, it’d be the beautiful hostess with the snake-dead eyes. Low risk, high reward.

Jackpot, baby.

She answered the door naked as the day she was born. Or, well, not quite, unless all those designs inked on her neck and arms and torso were just elaborate birthmarks.

“Not a fucking word,” she said. “I liked the look of you in those slacks and I didn’t ask you here to talk to me about whatever boring shit you do for a living, or your feelings, or your wife.”

“Anything for you, darling,” he said. He wasn’t married. He didn’t want to be, had never wanted to be. His friends from the old neighborhood who were married and had kids were miserable. Doubly so for his friends from work. He went to birthday parties and bar and bat mitzvahs and watched them smile-cringe and smiled a real smile to himself, knowing he’d dodged a bullet.

“Give me your card,” she said afterward. “You have mine. It’s only fair.” He gave her one. She held it to her face and inhaled. “Mine’s nicer.”

“Do you spray them with perfume?” he said.

“No,” she said. “I keep them in my bra.” Fuck. He was going to get hard again, like a goddamn teenager, standing in the hallway of her building.

“So, do I call you?” he said. “Or will you call me?”

“I’ll have my people get in touch with your people,” she said, sounding bored. She raised an eyebrow when he laughed. Like she didn’t expect him to find a joke funny if it was at his expense – like there was any other kind of joke, when you wanted to light yourself up like a match.

On the second date, for a given value of the word ‘date,’ he told her the family name he was born with. It was a lot like hers. Costello, Castillo. She considered it.

“You know what it means?” she said.

“Castillo means ‘castle’,” he said. “I don’t think Costello means anything.”

“Not the same in Italian?” she said.

“I’m Irish,” he said.

“Well, I’m not a Castillo,” she said. “It was my husband’s name. I kept it. I didn’t get to keep his money. Thought I should get something in the divorce.”

“Divorce?” he repeated, incredulous. “How old are you?”

“How old are _you_?” she snapped. He told her.

It’d be another month before she told him how old she was, and another six before she told him the truth. Another eight before she said she liked him, at which point he told her he loved her, and she slapped him. Then their had their wicked ways with each other, as usual. It was good. It worked.

It works better now, though. Neither of them has to pretend to be a functional member of society. Neither of them has to pretend to be anything unless they want to, which they do on a fairly regular basis. Jason Costello married Monica Rodriguez married Jonathan van Horn married Matilda Cisneros married Jack Castillo married Miranda Costello. Around and around. They can use whatever names they want, because names matter less than who they are. And they know each other deeper than the skin, down through meat and bone.

Jack owes Miranda a wedding present. Somebody at the roulette table looked at her funny. He’s got a white shirt upstairs in their room, and a straight razor in the pocket of his blazer. She has a switchblade in her garter. The handle’s inlaid with mother-of-pearl – a gift from Jonathan to Matilda for a different wedding. Very sweet. Very practical.

“We have fun, don’t we?” she says.

“Always.”


End file.
